Scintilla: The craft of denial

There’s a special type of denial that comes with police sirens screaming up and down the road while helicopters circle overhead.

After a peaceful weekend on nearby Atauro Island, snorkelling by day and swimming in the phosphorescent ocean by night, we knew on our return that things in Dili might be somewhat chaotic. Somewhere between reports of 58 cars being torched and rumours of a policeman killed is the truth. In a bid to continue to keep this blog as low on factual detail as possible, you can read about it here.

When there’s nothing you can do but sift through the text messages about the developing security situation piling up on your phone, you know the only thing to do is to turn to craft.

This is how my housemate and I found ourselves cementing tiles on a wall on a Monday morning in Dili. Both advised not to go to work, what could we possibly do but mix a bowl of cement and turn up Noah and the Whale?

The tree is an ongoing project that has seen various tiles sourced from a paint shop and donated by our neighbours. Our techniques are still developing but our vision is grand (it may or may not involve tiled butterflies and hanging ferns).

It seems a strange thing to be doing while so much is going on outside. The kids next door, playing with marbles and toy guns, told me that some Portuguese military came round last night to settle things down. My first and only response to that piece of information was to wash the car with dishwashing detergent.

Aside from the crafting and pottering at hand, all I can hope is that 7 months and 2 elections into 2012, peace will prevail in Dili.